Current Events > I'm reading Maus right now

(+) Yeah! (+)

it's an essential read

It's really great. I haven't read it since college though.

I have a vague feeling I might've read it in school? I recall reading something that involved people having to wear stars, and at the time - to put this in context I would've been like 5 or 6? - I didn't really think much of it or even realise it was about something historical rather than just another fairytale book, and it was only much later in hindsight that I realised "oh shit that book was probably about the holocaust" (I say "probably" because by that time my memory of it was extremely unclear so don't want to claim certianty) but by this point I didn't really remember anything about it.

Trumble posted...

I have a vague feeling I might've read it in school? I recall reading something that involved people having to wear stars, and at the time - to put this in context I would've been like 5 or 6? - I didn't really think much of it or even realise it was about something historical rather than just another fairytale book, and it was only much later in hindsight that I realised "oh shit that book was probably about the holocaust" (I say "probably" because by that time my memory of it was extremely unclear so don't want to claim certianty) but by this point I didn't really remember anything about it.

I'd be very disturbed if you read Maus in 1st grade. It's a graphic novel about the writer's father's time in concentration camps. Each nation's people are drawn as animals. Jewish are mice, German are cats, Polish are pigs, French are frogs, etc. The drawings can be pretty graphic.

I read it during college, it was kind of my own choice. It was interesting enough I believe. I remember I wanted to keep reading it, which is as good a sign as any.

BlazinBlue88 posted...

I'd be very disturbed if you read Maus in 1st grade. It's a graphic novel about the writer's father's time in concentration camps. Each nation's people are drawn as animals. Jewish are mice, German are cats, Polish are pigs, French are frogs, etc. The drawings can be pretty graphic.

I was a bit ahead of my age in terms of "grade" (we call it "year level" here) at that time, and we don't have America's obsession with puritanism here, or at least, not to the same extent. I haven't actually read Maus at any age where I recall its content, though, so I can only speak in general.

I definitely did hear about the Holocaust in general (though not too much detail - though I did hear of the gas showers) at around that age, though from family, not from school. I never made the connection between it and the book I spoke of, though, until much much later.

Trumble posted...

I was a bit ahead of my age in terms of "grade" (we call it "year level" here) at that time, and we don't have America's obsession with puritanism here, or at least, not to the same extent. I haven't actually read Maus at any age where I recall its content, though, so I can only speak in general.

I definitely did hear about the Holocaust in general (though not too much detail - though I did hear of the gas showers) at around that age, though from family, not from school. I never made the connection between it and the book I spoke of, though, until much much later.

It was more that I'd be shocked if a school had their students read it. If you read it on your own that would be different.

BlazinBlue88 posted...

It was more that I'd be shocked if a school had their students read it. If you read it on your own that would be different.

I recall that I read the book in question at school. I don't recall if it was something assigned to me or just something random I found in the library / the class bookshelf.